


here amongst the flowers

by Metamorphine



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Gen, a very late response, beau and jester talk about sadness and loss and the real meaning of bamf, post episode 79: through the trees
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-09
Updated: 2020-03-09
Packaged: 2021-02-28 23:48:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,106
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23075782
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Metamorphine/pseuds/Metamorphine
Summary: "When she finds herself in front of that room, well… she doesn’t ask herself why. She knows it already, doesn’t want to know it, wants to pretend she never thought it. But she peeks her head in anyway, eyes searching for the painted flowers that will no doubt break her heart.Instead her eyes fell on a back curved away from her and hunched like it was guarding the end of a question she couldn’t read."
Kudos: 11





	here amongst the flowers

_Post episode c2e79: Through The Trees_

When Jester was little, she used to have so much fun waiting for the absolute middle of the night when the bar was completely shut down and everything was silent in the Chateau to just wander. She would sneak down the grand staircase and watch how still the dust was in the moonbeams, how quiet the piano sat. She learned how each floorboard scolds and squeals when you wake them, much louder than during the daytime hours. But also oh so much more exciting. She would hold her breath and dance her way to the kitchen, knowing which steps would make the best song, whispering to the Traveler once she made it through the pantry door and asking if he’d liked her music. Skirt pocket full of pastries, she’d compose something new all the way back to her room and know she did a job well done, the crumbtrail she left across the foyer never mentioned.

In Xhorhas, it wasn’t so much waiting for night as it was just waiting for everyone else to be asleep. There was no signal from the moon, no call from the cicada, just a feeling of quiet that was too quiet, a lonely quiet. There was no excitement in this waiting because she wasn’t really waiting for everyone else to be asleep, but more like waiting for herself to fall asleep and just happening to outlast everyone else. There had been no plan, no mischief. Just a girl who was the wrong kind of tired wandering the halls when there was no one around to ask her why. She didn’t want to think about the why. Why was a heavy thing above her head, like a piano suspended above the stage in anticipation of falling and crushing her under its weight. So she picked up her skirts, kept her footsteps light, and pretended that there is no why. There is only the dim streetlights and the unfamiliar halls and a need to wander away from sleep.

When she finds herself in front of that room, well… she doesn’t ask herself why. She knows it already, doesn’t want to know it, wants to pretend she never thought it. But she peeks her head in anyway, eyes searching for the painted flowers that will no doubt break her heart.

Instead her eyes fell on a back curved away from her and hunched like it was guarding the end of a question she couldn’t read. She recognized the plain brown tabard draped over it as being Beau. Sympathy kept her steps light even though the woman would one hundred percent hear her coming no matter what she did. It was the peace offering of the action, the delicate way she folded herself down next to Beau out of respect instead of just frumping down in a lackadaisical pile like usual. She could now see past the curve of that spine and see that Beau was also waiting in suspense of her own why, guarding it between her ribs and letting herself be consumed by the pressure. 

“Hey,” Jester breathed, voice pillowed in soft feelings and concern. “Beau?” A gentle hand settled on the monk’s shoulder and she does not startle, always aware and expecting, but she also does not immediately respond, instead bringing that shoulder in a bit closer to hide the movement of her arm. Jester can tell that there is a lot of pride in this motion, a lot to be hurt in how the wrapped forearm drags beneath a hidden nose. 

“Hey Jessie.” Something has punched the bravado out of her voice, leaving her winded and a bit wet. She shifts her shoulders back, Jester’s hand falling to settle lower at her back. “I’m just… you know.” She waves a hand in a vague way that doesn’t really explain anything, just stirs the delicate feeling around the air. “And you?”

“Oh you know,” Jester starts, instinctively matching Beau’s blase tone before she stops herself. “I mean. I just.” The words stagger in her mouth, unsure of how to order themselves, how to form into something pretty and succinct. “I can’t stop thinking of her, about what she was thinking when she saws us, about what we could have done to get her back, and it all just keeps jumbling around in my head telling me we did something wrong and it’s just this horrible, ugly feeling and I’m guessing, like, you know, y’know?” 

The shoulder beneath her hand tightens like the coils of a spring, ready to turn kinetic against the pain of the thought, before letting it all unwind, releasing the tension like a pinwheel with a heavy exhale. “I was so stupid, I thought I could save her with my fists like pow, pow.” Beau weakly pantomimes the motion, wrapped fists an empty threat to the imposing ghost of Yasha painted around them in the room. “We had her,Jester. She was right there.”

Jester had to take her own pinwheel breath, remembering how it felt to see Yasha there beneath the tree, to think there was a chance, and to still end up defeated. But all of this feeling, all of this regret, it just left her shaking and scared, reminded her of being fragile and alone. This feeling was familiar to Jester in a way she never wanted it to be again, not now that she knew she had an alternative. She knew the feeling of warm hands guiding her, of a friend at her shoulder laughing at her jokes, and newer still of a group willing to believe in her back. It was no surprise that Beau also knew the fragile feeling, it being a common string that had been plucked and resonated in the both of them for some time now. Jester just now had to remind her of the symphony they’d composed since, so many more layers and harmonies in their journey than just that lamenting note. 

“Okay, so I know you’re like this super cool monk and having feelings is probably totes embarrassing, but you know like… it’s okay to be sad, right? I think maybe we’re all sad and pushing it down and using it to punish ourselves is just really lonely, when we could really all just be sad together, and well yeah, we’re still sad, but at least we’re not lonely and we’re helping each other with the sad. Because I’m sad too Beau. I’m really sad. But I know I have the Traveller with me watching over her and guiding me back to her and it feels nice to have someone by your side and have a little faith.”

“Man, fuck you,” Beau laughs, letting herself be obvious about wiping at her eyes. “I’m not emotionally compromised enough to join your cult.”

“It’s not a cult.”

The laughter feels nice, lighting up the dark corners in the empty room. The flowers on the wall seem to perk up as if to sunlight, no longer something left to mourn on a grave. Beau leans back into the palm on her back as she examines them, thankful for the hands that painted them. 

“Faith, huh? So this will all turn out okay because invisible hands are guiding us and all that shit? We just need to stop being sad and let it happen?”

“No, not like that. We let ourselves be sad, but then we get up and we actually do bamf in and save the day, just with a little more planning.”

“Wait bamf like a sound effect or bamf like badass motherfucker?”

“Technically bamf is the sound effect of being a badass motherfucker, aka us.” Jester took this opportunity to relax herself closer to Beau, letting herself become malleable against the firm form of the monk. “Being sad is proof that we care, and it feels horrible, but we know we’ll get through it. We’ve done it before.” She swishes her tail into her lap, playing with the soft peachfuzz near the tip. “Just like everything else in life, it gets easier with practice.”

“It’s like exercise for our emotions. The first mile will feel like hell, but over time the distance gets easier.” And Beau could still remember that first mile, back in a younger time, training for the distant future where she could be who she now is. She remembers that burn in her lungs that felt like suffocating, like if she didn’t stop now, she’d be incinerated. But she also remembered driving through it, letting the pain lick at the heels of her feet but never fully engulf her. And she survived. Hell, she flourished. “I’ve never been accused of being an optimist, so I won’t say that I foresee us ever being in a place where we’ll lack practice, but I will say that it’s nice knowing I’ll have someone at my side.”

“Like emotional work-out buddies!” Jester’s tail twitches playfully in her lap, swishing over to knock against Beau’s thigh. It was a light feeling, grounding. “Like a spotter that makes sure you don’t crush yourself under all that weight.”

The imagery had another laugh coming to a boil in her chest, bubbling over just enough to make a mess. She still felt like a mess, every breath bringing the lonely atmosphere in near to her heart. But now it was permeated with Jester’s words, a sprinkle of hope in the depth that wanted to drown her. Looking at the flowers and thinking about who inspired them didn’t stab in to her in quite the same way, now just a glancing blow, a flesh wound to remind her to stay on her toes. There was more to come and it was up to her whether to hunker down in defense or start fighting back. 

Jester’s hand had started rubbing small circles on her back, but had since gotten lost in the laughter and wandered into increasingly imaginative shapes, mapping an adventure out onto the knobs of her spine. The feeling was still soothing, despite the sporadic nature, and Beau felt her chest warming at the casual intimacy between them. She leaned to nudge her shoulder into Jester’s before catching her eyes, blue mirroring blue, and saying, “thank you Jester.”

The hand faltered for a moment before setting out with renewed purpose. “You’re so intense Beau. I’m just doing what friends do. Friends comfort and support each other and show their love and stuff.”

“You know, if you had said that to me before The Mighty Nein, I would have laughed in your face. Not many people take friendship as seriously as you do Jester. Not many people actually give a damn about the people around them.” Beau let herself stretch out, pushing back against the oppressive space around them, to drape an arm around Jester’s shoulder, leaving them in a loose embrace as they faced the mural on Yasha’s wall. “It’s honestly kind of fucked and I am so much happier being surrounded by you bleeding heart assholes.”

Jester just hummed in thought, gripping her nails into the brown fabric of Beau's tabard. "Don't be too surprised, but I actually haven't had many friends in my life. Like, not any, other than the Traveler and Blud. I guess I lucked out that my first real friends were all of you. Life would be really lonely without people who genuinely cared."

The arm around Jester's waist tightened. "It is."

The stillness of the night was still around them and Jester let herself take comfort in the silence, remembering how it felt to be in this same dark room, painting this picture with a sense of purpose and hope and love for a friend. The colors still stand proud, a declaration of love and fondness against the gloom of the situation. "Do you think Yasha is lonely right now? Do you think she realizes we still care about her, possessed or not?"

"She has to," Beau hoped aloud. "She has to know that the reason we're fighting her is to save her."

“Yeah,” Jester agrees, adding her own prayer of hope to the universe. If she had any energy left, she would whisper that hope to Yasha herself, wherever she may be, however she may be. “She knows us and that we’d never give up on her. Never.”

“Never,” Beau agrees.

The day weighs on them both, slumping their shoulders and slowing their breaths. Arms still entwined around bodies, they slowly sink further into each other and the soft lull of sleep. Moonlight and dust, hope and faith, they let it all drift around them and blanket their dreams.


End file.
